After quite a hassle.. Digital Performer 6 is finally running on my system. The first thing you noticed about DP6, versus 5, is you got a new interface.. This new interface has 3 main implications:

1. How do you make a wheel again?: You have a new interface to learn… you must learn new ways of doing whatever it was you were doing before.. 
2. There is a Psycho Acoustic principle via which software with new shiny interfaces always sounds better then the old ugly ones: More then anyone ever wants to admit.. our perception of audio is influenced by suggestion.. and so it is that if the software you’re using looks pretty.. well you think it sounds a whole lot better. From the point of view of someone producing music.. this is a nice feature.. as it inspires you on your adventure..
3. Stuff is Streamlines, or at least that’s what MOTU would have you believe: For the period in which you can’t figure out how to do what you used to take for granted.. stuff isn’t streamlined…. But I must say.. there’s a lot of stuff about Digital Performer that I really thought was.. well ways in which DP wasn’t exactly making sense in a modern production context.. and what do you know.. they’ve worked out much of that.

Beyond this grooviness.. we got other new grooviness.. but none of this is what’s really striking me at the moment.

Matt, what is really striking you? 

What’s really striking me is a sense of Awe of what I’m able to do in my studio now. On the sonic software side of things we got Digital Performer 6, Ableton Live, Reason, Native Instruments Komplete, Kore 2, and Liquid Mix 16… plus a couple other odds and ends. There are gaps that still need filling, which I could go on about ad nauseam… some of which I’m looking to rectify in the short term, others more long term.. but however you want to slice it.. there’s a lot of power under the hood.

Why are you struck by this now?

This is a complex topic but.. There is this sense that “software tools are not as good as hardware tools,” or at least that would be a simple way of putting it. It’s quite a bit like some people feeling that vinyl records are better then CDs… That vinyl is somehow “warmer” then CDs. This is a complex topic that can go into subjects of sample rates, ramifications of particular mastering issues for vinyl… and on and on and on. In the world of music production technology the topic is even more complex as that the technology of production is much less static then the issues of Vinyl and CDs.. which, lets face it.. people are choosing low quality MP3s anyway…  so what does it really matter?

 

My production tools acquisition process has always been one where issues of “price versus performance” plays the key roll.. If hardware tools are 1o% better then software tools, but cost 40% more.. I’m probably going with the software.. But in the world of serious sound engineering.. it’s the finally 10 or 5 percent that separates the men from the boys.. Most of what makes a good record are the people making it, not the tools.. but tools are very important.. and if you don’t have the right tools.. you’re probably not going to get there.. 

All of this talk is somewhat abstract.. until you actually start listening to the gear… In the last few months I’ve been going through a few years of Sound on Sound magazine.. reading reviews, interviews, and whatever.. trying to get a better picture of what gear is out there.. production techniques.. and all sorts of related things.. as well as scouring the internet.. and listening to all kinds of samples of all sorts of tools.

Somewhere in this process I began to think “hmm, maybe my tools aren’t so great?” But then DP6’s new look and feel came to the rescue.. and I started to perceive differently.. and started to discover how amazing some of the tools I have really are.

So I mean it was a kind of subjective shift that brought a new perspective.

Where the Artist Plays

As I tried to get to before.. the most important thing is not your tools.. it’s you. And it’s not even really your skills so much as your spirit.. for it is, after all, the spirit who employs said skills.. and even said tools!

There is something to be said for habit.. I find myself approaching my music making in more or less the same way as I always have.. In the last 9 months or so.. I’ve gone on all manner of fun little experimental adventures.. exploration of process alternatives.. and what not… But even with all that.. as I approach the music making today.. I do so in the hum drum of habit.

Habit?

For many, habit is a state inside of which growth doesn’t really happen. However.. if there is sufficient anarchy in your habits.. that anarchy is always going to be putting you in varying positions which you will have to wrestle your way out of.. and that’s often where the interest in my work comes. Or that’s one way of putting it.

 

Still.. I’m not without desire to get out of my usual habits.. it’s just that.. such ambitions are not really the most important thing.. the most important thing is getting the damn ball rolling.. and if that means playing to your preexistent strengths, so bit it. 

Getting the ball rolling? 

Yeah.. getting the ball rolling is the most important thing. As we speak the ball is in motion.. Wether I’m working a way on music, screwing around with photography, working with video, computer graphics, web design, whatever.. at the very least.. each day.. I do something.

The end goal is to have as much of your energy as possible pouring into this work.  The more of you you can put into it.. the better the work will be… By which I don’t necessarily mean that you should “be in your work” but.. well thats complicated.

Next Day Sometime

My work is a strange beast!  In someways, going about what I’m going about.. I feel like I’m working on Indra’s Net version 2.. Indra’s Net was a project I worked on sometime in 2004… and at the time the laptop I was using.. well the screen was freaking small.. which effected things in a number of ways.. the processor, even for the time.. was very much on the budget side.. I never had enough RAM.. some of my software wouldn’t even run! And we didn’t even have enough hard disk room to save what we were doing in anything other then MP3 files!

Now of course.. we’re using 2 24″ HD displays.. We only have about 2GB of RAM but that hasn’t been a real issue in the music production department.. We have software that’s 2 generations beyond what I was using on Indra’s Net.. We have ridiculous amounts of processing power…  and we have more disk space then we’d ever use for music production. Finally, instead of Cubase we are now using Digital Performer.

Beyond all that we are 4 years in the future.. 4 Years more mature.. whatever I’ve learned about music production since then.. and 4 years evolution in my work. 

So.. The implications of all this.. are actually kind of big.

Implications on habit

I don’t think I spoke elegantly about this last night.. and now that I’m a little further along in my production.. new things are growing clear.

Habit, in a certain way.. is like a path you’re walking down.. habit being an act that keeps you on that path.. and so it is that we see our selves evolving further down a path.. There are certain things we add to our bag of tricks.. certain things that change things a little bit.. lets explore in the context of the current production.

New to the new studio.. is a lot of new Reverbs. Digital Performer gives us a convolution Reverb.. and Kore 2 gives us a whole number of other sorts of new reverbs.. besides new reverbs there is, for me.. new ways of thinking about how to use reverbs.. varying .. and how I might EQ them… all of which has to do with creating a sense of space inside of which our music is happening.

My music, of course, is about space.. moving through space.. more psychic space then real space.. and music production in general.. creating a sense of space is important..

project specifics 

I think of the music as something like a buddhist meditation.. it is something like thoughts flowing through consciousness.. consciousness is our stage.

The use of Reverb and delay, and how I’m mixing stuff.. can transform.. or contextualize something that would normally be thought of as aggressive or rocking.. into something more ambient.. something we don’t think of as aggressive or rocking.. and in a fluid sorta evolving mix.. with respect to our sense of space.. the context can give us different shades.. where the aggressive bits can be more like textures.. to being.. something to rock out to.

This production is very much like this.. about this..  We have this rather industrial type percussion.. which rises in intensity over several measures.. and also moves from very far away to closer.. It repeats.. with gaps between repeats.. and it isn’t until it’s second repeat that it ever gets close enough to us that we feel it as heavy in anyway.

The sound elements that start off far away, and move in closer to us.. are all simply repeating the same lines.. no variations at this point.. accept in how they play against the other repeating parts.. and with respect to there location in the mix.

Everything has this ambient like feeling to it.. Until part way through.. We have a rather lead synth sound.. it repeats twice.. but then.. when it might repeat.. in comes a church organ.. which though it does start of a little ways away from us.. it doesn’t start off in audible.. and it’s repetitions are variations.. and it becomes as if the repetitions of the different instruments are now kind of.. playing against each other in a new kind of way.

It’s during this stage of the music’s evolution that I’m now bringing in a string section. The string section will not be playing a repetitive part.. but will instead be playing in ways the plays off the harmonic ecology of the mix.. repetitions we do find in it.. will be to echo other instruments.. and to create a move clear coherence.. in the material.

For now the music is moving into a place where it could be quite a bit more aggressive.. to be heavy and rocking.. but where we are at now is still a bit of a dream. 

How this Compares to Indra’s Net 

What I failed to mention about the Indra’s Net Project was that.. I had just bought Komplete 2.. (5 is my current version).. and I was really just started to explore the tools.. and a new version of Cubase.. Now I actually know the tools..

What we are seeing now is subtleties.. between the new reverbs, the larger sound pallets… and the mix has a much greater kind of.. quality to it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Digital Performer, Indra's Net, Komplete & Kore, Music Production, My Studio, musical composition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.